The Calabash International Literary Festival, the island’s premier literary feast, will this year return to Jake’s in the small fishing village of Treasure Beach, on the island’s south coast in St Elizabeth.

Dubbed ‘Globalishus’, a term coined by co-founder and festival director Kwame Dawes to reflect its scope and reach, the now biannual event will take place May 30 – June 1, 2014 and will feature perhaps the most impressive line-up of presenters in many years. At the recent launch, at Redbones, the Blues Café, Dawes stressed the festival’s larger international content with literary luminaries and musicians in attendance from as far as India. Indeed, world-renowned Sir Salman Rushdie, author of the iconic The Satanic Verses, will grace the Jake’s stage this year. Also from India is Rahul Bhattacharya, author of the acclaimed cricket travelogue Pundits From Pakistan. American JaQuavis Coleman, Jamaica-born pop culture writer Christopher John Farley, acclaimed Antiguan author Jamaica Kincaid, Jamaica’s Beverly East, Major Jackson from the United States, Ireland’s Paul Muldoon, and Karen Lord from Barbados are other confirmed artistes for Calabash 2014. Also on this year’s bill is Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin), Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Ngugi wa Thiongo (Wizard of the Crow) and Valzhyna Mort (I’m as Thin as Your Eyelashes).

“As the theme suggests, we are truly international. For the first time we will have a science fiction component because we want to explore new genres,” said long-standing festival producer Justine Henzell. And Stephanie Saulter, sister of Jamaican film directors Storm and Nile Saulter, is expected to explore this facet when she reads from her Evolution science fiction trilogy, the first of which, Gemsigns, was released last year.

Music, another important aspect of the convivial three-day festival, will see various bands in performance throughout the weekend culminating in a tribute to Judy Mowatt by the Calabash Acoustic Ensemble, a quartet consisting of Wayne Armond, Ibo Cooper, Steve Golding, and Seretse Small.

Founded in 2001, Calabash is the creation of Jamaican novelist Colin Channer and his friends, the Jamaican poet and playwright Kwame Dawes and freelance producer and filmmaker Justine Henzell. Together they formed the Calabash International Literary Festival Trust, a registered not-for-profit organisation under the laws of Jamaica. The festival – which has over the 12 years seen a diverse list of participants including Nobel Laureates Wole Soyinka & Derek Walcott, Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz, US Poet Laureates Billy Collins and Robert Pinksky, MacArthur Genius Award Recipients Edwidge Danticat & Chimamanda Adichie, Russell Banks, Caryl Phillips, Colson Whitehead, Sharon Olds, Natasha Trethewey, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Chris Abani – was meant to provide a forum for established writers of fiction, literary non-fiction and poetry to present their works to an interested and diverse audience and, additionally, for new writers to establish a voice.

Local authors and poets expected to present this year include Ad-Ziko Simba Gegele (All Over Again), Roland Watson-Grant (Sketcher), Millicent Graham (The Damp in Things), Ann-Margaret Lim (Festival of Wild Orchid), and Velma Pollard (And Caret Bay Again).

Calabash is supported by the CHASE Fund, The Jamaica Tourist Board, Carib Export, Wisynco Trading, among other corporate and individual donations from home and abroad.

See next page for the 2014 programme schedule.

PAGE TWO:

Writer credits: Sharon Leach, Stephanie McKenzie, Earl McKenzie

Calabash 2014 Festival Programme

Friday, May 30 Saturday, May 31 Sunday, Jun 1

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

PATCHWORK QUILT

Yard Minted Weavers of Fiction Transport to worlds lived and imagined

Beverley East (JA/UK)

Adziko Simba Gegele

(JA/NIGERIA)

Roland Watson-Grant

(JA)

9:00 pm – 10:00 pm

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

World-class poets purifying the dialects of their respective tribes

Major Jackson (USA)

Valzhyna Mort (Belarus)

Paul Muldoon (Ireland/USA)

10:30 pm – midnight

SLAMMIN’

Four voices forged in a hip-

hop foundry

JaQuavis Coleman (USA)

Miasha (USA)

Prodigy (USA)

K’Wan (USA)

Midnight – 2:00 am

Midnight Ravers

New bands to hot up de place on a cool night in Treasure Beach

10:00 am – 11:30 am

YARDIE STYLIE

The established and the

emerging speak verse of

shimmering grace

Millicent Graham (JA)

Ann Margaret Lim (JA)

Velma Pollard (JA)

12 noon – 1:00 pm

TWO THE HARD WAY

Capacious imaginings from two giants of the finest literary fiction

Zadie Smith (JA/UK)

Colum McCann (Ireland/USA)

1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Break/Open Mike

2:30 pm – 4:00 pm

OUT THERE

To go boldly where some of us have not gone before

Stephanie Saulter (JA/UK)

Karen Lord (Barbados)

Chris John Farley (JA/USA)

4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

REASONINGS PRESENTS:

Bigness in de place!

Sir Salman Rushdie (India/UK)

in conversation with Paul Holdengraber

6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Break/Open Mike

8:00 pm – 9:15 pm

FAMILY AFFAIR

Mze and his offspring show sometimes it runs in the blood

Mukoma wa Ngugi (Kenya/USA)

Wanjiku wa Ngugi (Kenya)

Ngugi Wa Thiongo (Kenya)

9:45 pm – 10:00 pm

GO THE R**S TO SLEEP

A reading of a new Jamaican translation of a runaway international bestseller: Cork yuh ears!

Read by Alwyn Scott (JA)

10:00pm -11:30pm

GLOBALITY

Gifted cartographers of the

uncharted world. Fiction

that travels.

Robert Antoni (Trinidad/US)

Rahul Bhattacharya (India)

Andrea Stuart

(Barbados/UK)

Midnight – 2:00 am

Cala-Clash

10:00 am – 11:30 am

TRIBUTE READING OF

Wilson Harris’s Heartland

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of a Caribbean classic by four Jamaican notables.

Dionne Jackson Miller

Douglas Orane

Winston Stona

TBA

12 noon – 1:00 pm

REASONINGS PRESENTS:

Islands, gardens, music, family, truth, inventions and art – a one-on-one with Jamaica Kincaid in Jamaica

Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua/USA)

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Break/Open Mike

3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Calabash Acoustic Ensemble

A tribute to Judy Mowatt

Wayne Armond (JA)

Ibo Cooper (JA)

Steve Golding (JA)

Seretse Small (JA)

>>> BOOK NEWS

Jamaicans make Hollick Arvon list

Two emerging Jamaican writers, one from Grenada, one from St Vincent and the Grenadines, and four from Trinidad and Tobago are the eight finalists for the much-coveted 2014 Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, now in its second year.

They are:

Turn Around, Judy Antoine, Grenada

Let It Fly, Melissa Balgobin, Trinidad and Tobago

Split Level, Rhoda Bharath, Trinidad and Tobago

17 Rest House Road, Ira Mathur, Trinidad and Tobago

Loving Jamaica, Diana McCaulay, Jamaica

The Plight of the Humanitarian Aid Worker, Nadine McNeil, Jamaica

Canouan Suite, Philip Nanton, St Vincent and the Grenadines

Richard Bridgens, Judy Raymond, Trinidad and Tobago

The prize, administered by the Bocas Lit Fest and worth a total of US$15,000, will give the winning Caribbean-based writer time to advance a non-fiction work in progress. It includes a year’s mentoring by an established author and travel to the United Kingdom to attend a one-week intensive creative writing course of their choice at Arvon.

===============

Finalists for inaugural Burt Award for Caribbean Literature announced

Port of Spain – CODE is proud to announce the finalists for its inaugural Burt Award for Caribbean Literature.

The shortlisted titles are (in alphabetical order):

o Island Princess in Brooklyn by Diane Browne, Jamaica (published by Carlong)

o All Over Again by A-dZiko Gegele, Jamaica (published by Blouse & Skirt Books)

o Barrel Girl by Glynis Guevara, Trinidad and Tobago (manuscript to be published)

o Musical Youth by Joanne Hillhouse, Antigua and Barbuda (manuscript to be published)

o Abraham’s Treasure by Joanne Skerrett, Dominica (published by Papillotte Press)

o Inner City Girl by Colleen Smith Dennis, Jamaica (published by LMH Publishing)

The finalists were selected by a jury administered by The Bocas Lit Fest and made up of writers, literacy experts and academics from the Caribbean and Canada.

“In the Caribbean, as in much of the world, demand for relevant, entertaining books that speak to young people in their own language is constantly growing,” said CODE Executive Director Scott Walter. “With the award, we’re hoping to help address this demand by supporting the development of new titles that reflect the lives of their readers, while providing opportunities for promising writers to emerge and regional publishers to prosper. Our ultimate goal is for young people across the Caribbean to have access to good books they will enjoy so they can develop the love of reading and become lifelong learners.”

The three winners of the first edition of this annual Award will be announced on April 25, 2014 at a Gala to be held as part of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. A first prize of $10,000 CAD, a second prize of $7,000 CAD and a third prize of $5,000 CAD will be awarded to the authors of the winning titles. In addition, publishers of the winning titles will be awarded a guaranteed purchase of up to 2,500 copies, ensuring that the books get into the hands of young people through schools, libraries and community organisations across the Caribbean. Winning publishers also commit to actively market an additional minimum of 1,200 copies of each winning title throughout the region.

Marina Salandy-Brown, founder of The Bocas Lit Fest says, “We are delighted to be working with CODE and William Burt in administering this exceptional prize that not only supports writers of an underserved genre in the Caribbean – young adult literature – but publishers too, and which addresses headlong the critical issue of marketing and distribution in our region.”

The Burt Award for Caribbean Literature was established by CODE – a Canadian charitable organisation that has been advancing literacy and learning for 55 years – in collaboration with William (Bill) Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation. The award is the result of a close collaboration with CODE’s local partners in the Caribbean, The Bocas Lit Fest and CaribLit.

CODE’s Burt Award is a global readership initiative and is also currently established in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Canada.

PAGE THREE:

Review:

The Importance of Guyana’s Archives [pic: tommy payne]

Tommy Payne

Former/Retired Archivist, National Archives of Guyana

“Archival Sources in Guyana and their Significance”

February 28, 2014

Moray House, Georgetown, Guyana

CAP: Hugh ‘Tommy’ Payne, Moray House, Georgetown, Guyana; photo credit Stephanie McKenzie

“My task is to tell you about the value and importance of historical archives in Guyana,” Hugh ‘Tommy’ Payne began his lecture “Archival Sources in Guyana and Their Significance.”

Tommy Payne is the retired archivist of Guyana’s National Archives. Born and raised in Buxton, Guyana, Payne attended Buxton Congretional School and pursued his secondary education at Queen’s College (1951-61). In 1961-62, Payne taught at Tagore High School, No 63 Village, Corentyne, Berbice, and, then, attended the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, 1962-65, taking a degree in History (Hons). In November 1965, he joined the National Archives of Guyana and served as inspecting officer from Nov 1965 to May 1970 and, then, as archivist from June 1970-May 1988. Payne worked as a consultant for the Archives (History) from June 1988 to Sept 1993 and the Caribbean Development Bank from Nov 1994 to Aug 2007. He was vice-president of the Caribbean Archives Association (CARBICA) from 1979 to 1992 and president from 1982 to 1985.

Although Payne’s lecture seemed geared for an audience “in-the-know,” with many first-name references and references to Guyanese politics which only people with local knowledge or experts might hold, Payne’s talk was informative and provocative. He seemed to be making four main points to those gathered at Moray House, a place governed by the mission’s Trust: “a private, non-partisan, not-for-profit, cultural initiative to foster national pride in Guyana’s diverse heritage, to enable all forms of artistic expression, to promote conservation, civil liberties and sport in [Guyanese] society, and to stimulate the sharing of knowledge and ideas within a vibrant public sphere” (programme notes).

Speaking of his initiatives as national archivist, Payne noted he took the position when the general understanding was that documents which had been sent abroad (often to the United Kingdom) were most important. Payne contended that local knowledge/archives are equally rich and that they offer different perspectives: people tend to send documents away that keep foreign offices happy and quiet, Payne suggested. He had long hoped local documents could help create a different and systematic catalogue that didn’t spell typical reliance on foreign holdings.

Payne’s convictions about local knowledge were supported by memorable examples. Reading a 1988 cartoon about the garbage problem in Georgetown, a challenge which has changed the name of the former “garden city” to what many today call “the garbage city,” Payne noted that if one were to go back to early maps of Georgetown, one might see why there is such a garbage problem in today’s trenches. Pavement or streets have simply been put on top of a lot of the canals which had been constructed for the outflow of water, Payne explained. Payne also recalled that, in 1981, he had written to then president of Guyana, Linden Forbes Burnham, regarding renewed tensions between Venezuela and Guyana when Venezuela refused to renew the Protocol of Port-of-Spain (signed in 1970 when a 12-year moratorium had been invoked on a persistent border dispute between the two countries). Payne noted in his letter that Guyana needed to establish a grouping of locally reposed archives as this was the only information, or records, Venezuela had not seen, though Venezuela, according to Payne, had been working on the problem for a long while. The importance of local history and knowledge was assiduously underscored throughout Payne’s talk. “What about the village offices?” Payne asked. “If records exist, they might be seen as part of the local patrimony. What about ecclesiastical records? Not enough attention is given to them,” Payne said. “What about business archives?”

Payne also claimed that archives “ought to be the preserve of every citizen”. In an interview with me after his lecture, Payne indicated that though the archives had always technically been open to everyone, there had been no real encouragement to use them before his time. Payne started to do a series on the air called Today in History (the radio programme also produced several booklets), in which he underscored the importance of archival records. Payne had tried to use archival data to explain to the individual his/her rights, and Payne said that this belief led to the opening up of/wider encouragement to use the archives.

Payne suggested local knowledge could be easily augmented. He noted that while many people held important institutional memory which needs to be kept for posterity “very few people tend to leave exit reports”. Payne pointed to AJ Seymour’s Thirty Years a Civil Servant (self-published in 1982) which, for Payne, functioned as a sort of exit report and said it should be modelled by those who hold positions in civil offices.

Question period raised other issues; notably, several individuals queried what could be done with the case of records that had deliberately been destroyed. In interview, Payne maintained, for one, that many documents from Burnham’s administration had been destroyed when governments shifted. Payne’s lecture indicated he had been a Burnham supporter, and Payne, in interview, said Burnham recognised Payne’s research as something he could build policies on. For example, Payne noted that when Burnham was going to repeal the law on obeah, Payne did the research. Payne’s lecture indicated he believed his role necessitated he report to someone high up. Payne also said in interview, however, that he accepted the fact Burnham wasn’t God; his lecture recounted one instance when he wrote to Burnham, indicating institutional reorganisation was needed and saying he was going to write a document. Burnham stopped talking to him for a year, Payne said, then added, “Let’s debate the myth about Burnham not being able to be censored.”

Payne spoke to his audience about his greatest grievance as an archivist. Former Archbishop of the West Indies and head of the Anglican Church of St George’s, Georgetown, Alan John Knight, had approached Payne and offered him all the records from the Anglican Churches in Guyana. Payne was unable to take them.

The archives remain largely undigitised, Payne pointed out, but his lecture drew attention to the National Archives Digitisation Project (“coordinated by the Ministry of Culture, members of the National Archives and Dev. Information Technology of North America,” according to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports’ website). The first phase of the digitisation of East Indian immigration records was intended to coincide with the 175th anniversary of the first arrival of Indians in Guyana (May 2013), though it had to be pushed back until recently. Payne recognised the endeavour as valuable but noted many other documents need protection.

Near the end of questions, Payne asked, “How many can tell me the significance of May 26, 1954 in terms of local history?” There were several whispers. “That was when Victoria was blown up,” Payne answered. Payne was referring to the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Georgetown’s law courts whose head and orb-bearing left hand were blown apart by dynamite 12 years before Guyana’s independence. “The archives are all around us,” Payne concluded.

Tommy Payne is the author of 10 Days in August 1834: 10 Days that Changed the World (Caribbean Diaspora Press, 2001). He is currently working on a book on Angel Gabriel (James Sayers Orr).

Dr Stephanie McKenzie is an associate professor, English Programme, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada.

PAGE FOUR:

Bookends serial:

Love Wounds:

PULL QUOTE: And now I was approaching my birthday with trepidation, wondering what the night was going to bring me, whether I would spend it in the company of some semi-stranger who would roll out of my bed before daylight and hurriedly return home to his wife.

Chapter 11

And just what kind of man was my type?

It was the question that stayed on my mind, haunting me even after my professional and relationship with Dr Miller came to a premature end. Did I even have a type? Surely, I could not. The men I’d slept with in the last nine months were as dissimilar as men could be in terms of physical traits. Chester was a high-coloured man, big and solid like a teddy bear; American Bill was white, and wiry as an Ethiopian distance runner; Cy was old and wrinkly, with only his killer sense of humour to recommend him; while Dr Miller was brainy and preppy and emotionally wrapped tight with his anal-retentive neckties and shiny, self-conscious wingtips – the last person one would suspect capable of slumming with the likes of me.

But there you had it. With the exception of Chester, with whom I’d resumed the affair with a vengeance after Amsterdam, and if you didn’t count Derek, a “separated” partner at Carlene’s office whom I’d gone to dinner with one night and with whom I’d ended up having sloppy, drunken sex in the back of his Mercedes because he couldn’t take me to his home since his wife still lived there, “in a different wing, of course”, and whose number I’d deleted from my phone first thing the following morning, they’d basically been an assortment of two- or three-night stands. These men had simply been choices of opportunity; I’d chosen them because they’d been there. And, it was becoming fairly obvious, because they were involved with other women. And not simply other women: these women were their wives, I mean, Cy was my sister’s husband, for God’s sake. Clearly there was no future with any of them. I knew this. And it seemed to me that this was why I’d chosen them. Perhaps this made them my type. A clear picture had begun to emerge: subconsciously I wanted to avoid the possibility of emotional entanglement with someone who very possibly might dump my ass again. The way Martin had. I hated the way that Martin’s name kept popping up in my ruminations now; I thought I’d moved on.

But my new therapist, Dr Johnny, with whom I was pleased to realise I was making some headway, pointed out that I had in fact not moved on from Martin. “No, you haven’t suddenly become a sex addict, Greta,” he said, frowning, when I introduced this fear.

He was a refined older man, in his mid- to late-sixties, almost certainly gay, balding, with a goatee and the slightest trace of a Southern drawl. He possessed the mellow air of a renegade, a beatnik, dressed as he always was in dashikis and faded Levi’s, someone who would have attended Woodstock in the Sixties. The emotional trauma sustained in the wake of the break-up was very real, he informed me, and by feverishly burying it all this time, I had in fact not dealt with it at all. “You have to work through pain, my dear, not subjugate it by stifling it, pretending it isn’t even there,” he said, shrugging.

He was right. After the initial shock of realising Martin really had left me, I’d hastily gathered up the wreckage of my life and done what I had to do to get out of bed every day. To survive. That meant that I’d got rid of all the reminders of him: the pictures, the mementos, everything that brought pain to look at. I’d ‘unfriended’ him on Facebook, cut ties with whatever friends we’d had in common, and had not renewed my subscription for the gym we attended. And, most importantly, I hadn’t been with a man for two years after that. But I hadn’t really allowed myself to admit how much he’d deeply wounded me, opting instead, when I finally returned to the mating game, to do so with unavailable men, men I subconsciously understood would never have the power to hurt me the way he had.

And now I was approaching my birthday with trepidation, wondering what the night was going to bring me, whether I would spend it in the company of some semi-stranger who would roll out of my bed before daylight and hurriedly return home to his wife. I could see it in my mind’s eye: dinner somewhere upmarket that involved shellfish, premium liquor, decadent dessert (depending on how fat I felt while trying to get into the tiny little beaded Prada number I’d already earmarked for the occasion), sparkling conversation (hopefully), then, back at my place for adrenaline-fuelled sex (that involved, on my part, multiple orgasms). Then, hello, after the heart rate had slowed, a movement to retrieve his clothes, no shower (naturally, any man worth his salt knew better than to go home to the wife smelling Irish Spring-fresh late at night) and a hurried peck on the forehead goodnight. Somehow, I feared this scenario even more than I feared turning 37, a number I’d always thought of as the beginning of the end. The end being, of course, the downhill slide to ignominious decrepitude and unimaginable loneliness.

~

I met Martin when I was emerging from the fog of my twenties. I hadn’t even really liked him at first. He was sadly of average height, which meant that when I wore heels I was taller than he was, which bothered me even though he never gave it a thought. He was a gym rat; he had a great body. But that made him even less appealing. It had been my experience that the ones who worshipped at the altar of the gym were either gay or self-absorbed straight men, both categories I had no inclination towards (even though I’d once pursued a flirtation, then dalliance, in college with a guy who, it turned out, fit both bills, which is probably a whole other income stream to keep my shrink and his accountant in the black for a while).

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

PRAYER VOICES

By Earl McKenzie

Startled by the absence of birdsongs

during my meditation,

and remembering their sensitivity to disasters,

I panicked

fearing earthquake, hurricane or flood.

There was a deep loneliness

in my birdlessness.

Then I heard the hum of women’s voices

praying for a sick neighbour.

It was as if the birds had paused

in reverential stillness

to allow the outpouring

of the human cries.

I added my own supplication

for relief from all suffering.

And when the women and I were finished,

the birds resumed their singing,

adding the prayer voices

of their own birdlife.